Anatomy of a Wall - Part 2

"The Wall - Color Me Blue"

a Meski DTE tutorial

Copyright 2004, Robert Cox
May not be distributed without the written consent of author.

Introduction

I carefully avoided color in the previous sections of this tutorial.  Color adds a whole new dimension to the materials we create in the DTE.  What we have done up until this point is exactly what I did when I was ( still am ) learning the DTE.  I took one area and learned what I could.  By confining my attention to Alpha, Bump, the noise editor, and the Filter I was able to understand a little.  Trying to do it all at once was overwhelming!

You may also wonder why I have confined my attention to repetitive pattern materials.  In order to see the effects of parameter adjustment, repetitive patterns show the result more easily than complex materials.  The same is true for color. 

Color - Setup

• Load my handy dandy neutral sky in the Sky Editor.  Why? See Here.
   
• Create the proverbial cube.
   
• Load the Nothing Sine Material.
   

Color - Color and the Filter

1. Change the Noise Type to Square.
    

2. Change the Noise to 3D.
    

3. Make sure that Filter is None and Phase is 0.
    

4. Click the little dart at the lower left of Component1 and set the color mode to "Spline Interpolation"
   
   
    

5. Set the color to easily recognizable colors like shown in the image above.
   
   
    

6. Click on the "C" in Component1's palette.  Where is our red?  Let's see if we can force it.
   
   
    

7. Choose Clip aX+b in the Filter and Click Reset.
   
   
    

8. Set our "Brightness" control "b" to about .5.  Notice that our blue has been replaced with red.  Our bright white-red has stayed the same.
   
   
    

9. Ok... Let's change our brightness to -.5.  Notice that the squares are now using the top two colors .  If you watched as you changed "b" slowly, the middle color mixed the the color you were replacing in varying amounts.
   
   Change "b" to be almost 1.0 and -1.0 and observe the color in the preview window.  Notice the relationship between the position of the wave in Filter's preview.  At 1.0 you are entirely clipped at the top.  At 0.0 you are entirely clipped at 0.0 at the bottom.
   
   Ok, now the big question.  Why can't we adjust the Filter to display all 3 colors at the same time?  <The music from Jeopardy plays> Ok... time is up.  The problem lies in the nature of the noise we are using.  Click on the "C" to turn off color.  Note that the squares have no gray.  Remember what I said about turning of color when in doubt? They go from black to white very quickly.  Therefore we can only display two of the three colors at the same time  in component 1 because we have only black and white in the noise.  Move "b" with the color off and notice when you get gray.  Turn the "C" back on.  You will now show the Middle color but will lose either blue or the white with a touch of red.  ( I didn't use pure white with that color )
   
   Also notice what color corresponds to the Filter's output.  It is counter intuitive but the order of the color buttons in Component1 is reversed.  The bottom color represents the top (white) of the Filter's output.  The position of the other two colors are shown below.
   
   
    

10. So, how would we get gray into our squares and still preserve the square?  See below. :)  Remember what I said about Octaves is like striking two or more piano keys?  Are we making harmony or what? :)

Notice the different shades of color.  This is accomplished by the mixing of the square noise with a multiple of itself.  At some points the two noises add to each other and at some points they subtract.  The net result is a gradient from black to white in alpha and bump controlled by the Filter.

 

11. Now adjust the filter like the example above.  Try negative numbers in "a" and positive numbers in "b".  Reverse that logic and try positive in "a" and negative in "b".

Next - Let's Quantize N More!